Chinese Underwater Glider ‘Petrel’ Sets World Diving Depth Record

On July 16, 2020, a scientific research and observation team organized by the Pilot National Laboratory of Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) returned from their experimental voyage. They announced that the underwater glider “Petrel-X” had set a new world diving depth record of 10619 meters, breaking the world record of 8213m it set in 2018.

During the voyage, two “Petrel-X” underwater gliders jointly developed by the Pilot National Laboratory of Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) and Tianjin University were laid out for six days and returned with 45 profiling motions, including three profiling motions at depths of 10245m, 10347m and 10619m respectively, and a great amount of data in terms of the thermohaline circulation and images at the hadal zone.The repeated above 10,000-meter depth results verified Petrel-X’s reliability in the deep ocean environment.

The underwater glider is known as an autonomous underwater vehicle with the buoyancy-driven system. It is applicable for deep-sea environment observation.

By Eva Yin